A Painter's Muse (SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY)
by hustlebones
Summary: An extraction operation goes wrong when one of the Spetsnaz's finest operatives is drugged and kidnapped from an isolated location separate from the rest of his unit. Meanwhile, emotions clash at RAINBOW's headquarters, and a ragtag assemblage of the organization's willing operators secretly formulate a rescue plan for a fellow operator, friend, and - for one - steadfast lover.
1. Crime and Punishment

The sensation of morning light filtering through the skin of Glaz's closed eyelids was enough to wake him up.

Fatigue hit him like a freight train. He blinked rapidly, trying to orient himself with his surroundings, then realized he was sitting completely upright. His entire body felt sore.

Glaz squinted. The world felt like how static sounded. He must've fallen asleep in the break room, then. He would do that sometimes: sit down for some quick shut-eye in the evening, end up cozying further into a chair's springy cushions, and before he knew it, he would be waking up at midnight with pale moonlight shining onto his face from an open window, the break room deserted. Sometimes another operator would have the courtesy to throw a blanket over him before they left.

He felt for that blanket now – or, at least, _attempted _to, before realizing that he could no longer move his hands. Or his arms, for that matter.

He blinked again, shaking his head of any clinging sleepiness or hypnagogic imagery, and tried once more. Dread had already begun to seep in at the edge of his senses. It was as if his unconscious mind already knew what had happened, what was happening, what was about to happen.

A sobering _clink _greeted his attempts.

Panic rose in Glaz's chest, his heartbeat quickening. He looked down at the rest of his body. Two silver handcuffs encircled his wrists, pinning them down to metallic armrests that dug uncomfortably into the sleeves of his uniform. The chair had no rounded edges – each side felt razor-sharp, as if it had been welded from a careless assortment of spare metal strips and scrap - and Glaz discovered that trying to slide his hands against its hard surface only aggravated whatever soreness was inhibiting him.

Being that there was no way to get comfortable, Glaz gave up trying to position his arms and experimentally kicked out his legs. They got a bit farther from the front legs of the chair, though in a way it hurt even more when they were suddenly halted by the thread of chains attaching them back to the chair legs. It was like yanking at the neck of a dog when it reached the end of its leash.

Glaz exhaled harshly through his nose. It was all falling into place around him; all these feelings, these aches, these abstract, horrific pieces.

_He smashed the enemy's face into the rocks...almost launching them off the slope where he stood...a broken nose...the crunch of boots sounding behind him..._

But he couldn't remember what had actually occurred. He raked his mind for any sort of memory that jutted out to him, but to his terror, he couldn't find any. _Why? Why can't I _remember?

_Glaz was lying prone in-between a mossy boulder and a towering snowbank, using the latter for cover against wind shear. His world was narrowed down to the sights of his scope, and he swiped his rifle left and right, getting a feel for the area he'd be spotting alongside the dual Russian-German operative units. His radio hummed, burst with static, then proceeded with its business of role-call, repeating its slate of transmitted orders from Six..._

Glaz's mouth felt dry. Even as fragments of memories made their way towards him, it was all coming too slow and too late. His head hurt. He was becoming aware of some type of material crusted onto the side of his face, beginning to flake. If Glaz focused hard enough, he could smell iron.

He looked back towards the light again.

Dust motes swirled around the thin shaft of visible luminescence in an the otherwise dismal stretch of space. It seemed like the opening for light was no larger than a mail slot, yet it was positioned at just the right angle to shine directly into Glaz's eyes. He squinted against its rays and realized the opening was little more than a wide crack between the wall and ceiling. Was that the only source of light in the room, then? He looked up. Above him, an industrial light fixture tinged with rust and dead flies was secured to the ceiling. Whether it was broken or simply turned off, Glaz could not tell.

_One attacker was down on the ground, groaning. The freshly fallen snow was turning red around his inert form. Glaz scrambled for his own radio. He was lowering his finger to toggle it on when a force from behind knocked it out of his hands. It went sailing off of the slope. Glaz whirled to face the hidden opponent, and then his vision went white, a blinding pain shooting up from its origin on his inner wrist. Glaz screamed into a gloved hand, and then the world was falling, fading..._

Square tiles had been laid on the floor, surrounded by slabs of dull concrete that served as rudimentary walls. The tiles hadn't been cleaned for some time. It appeared as if they had once been white, though now they had yellowed to a color resembling manila paper. Dirt and mold nestled in the floor's narrow grooves like tiny ecosystems.

Then Glaz spotted what he was looking for: a small, inconspicuous drain, nestled in the far right corner of the room. He realized that the entire floor slanted downwards to a slight degree towards the little gutter, and that the tiles immediately around it were more corroded than the rest.

The sniper's stomach churned. Still, he forced himself to take deep breaths, like the ones he practiced before taking a shot. Deep enough that he could feel his lungs expand – then hold for four seconds, five – now, exhale...

A door opened from behind him. Glaz could hear its bolts squealing on their hinges. _Seems like the door is in just as good quality as the rest of this shithouse, _Glaz thought.A set of heavy boots on the tile, and then another. Two of them. Glaz didn't try to turn his head around. Instead, he urged his body to relax, going limp in his restraints as if he was still dazed.

"Rise and shine, _mudak_." They were speaking English. A hand clamped roughly down on Glaz's shoulder. "Smith's drugs should be wearing off right about now, eh?" An arm came into view, followed by a torso of pure bulk.

And then Glaz was staring into the half-lidded eyes of a White Mask.

"_This is a sensitive extraction that will require enhanced focus and cohesion between the Spetsnaz and GSG 9 units," Glaz's radio was squawking in his ear for the third time in a half hour. "Adding on to our previous intelligence regarding this operation, updated reports have included reports of the global terrorist cell known as the White Masks being spotted in vehicular convoys not far from the location of extraction. Intelligence, at this point in time, are still unsure of their motivations..."_

_Glaz zoomed in and out on his scope, cranking at his target turrets as he adjusted the sights to a proper elevation._

_His communications crackled. A haughty voice spoke. "Of _course_ they're here," said the voice. Bandit, Glaz realized. "I'll give them a good boot up the ass, the fucking cowardly, terrorist _Fotzen-_" The voice cut short. Bandit must've forgotten to keep his radio toggled down all the way. Or another operative had summarily kicked him off the minute he'd started spouting foreign vulgarities._

_Still, Glaz couldn't help but smile beneath his scarf. Rainbow operatives disagreed on a great deal of things, but they also seemed to bond over their mutual condemnation of the living scum that they had deemed 'The White Masks.'_

_Filled with renewed vigor, Glaz got to work sighting certain points through his scope, going through the motions as more units hopped onto comms to rag on the White Masks._ _It was a good way to de-stress before an operation. _Wouldn't mind cracking open some of their heads myself, _Glaz thought. _God knows they deserved it after what they'd done to so many innocents. To _us.._.

Glaz didn't break the terrorist's gaze. Out of all the possibilities, all the chances, the White Masks had somehow scooped him up and dumped him into this hellhole. He was going to die here. Rainbow would be down one more operator. It should have scared the living shit out of him, but Glaz found himself more infuriated than anything else. He'd let this happen to him. It was his fault.

"Damn, you look wide awake already," said the White Mask. His voice scraped at Glaz's ears like sandpaper. He dug his fingers further into Glaz's shoulder. Glaz did not dare wince. "You been up for some time? The view's lovely, I know." The White Mask wore a long hooded jacket, a ballistic vest visible underneath it. A normal get-up to expect from them, but it made Glaz tense up nevertheless. That mask stood for so many atrocities, so many awful memories...

"Leave the operative be," said another voice. Glaz looked away from the White Mask taunting him and up into the hidden face of another of their ilk, though this one seemed a measure shorter than the other, with a more narrow build and careful walk. A hunter, not a brawler. "He'll be singing in no time. For now, I beg you, _please_ shut up." He, too, had on a simple cloak and shirt. He was even wearing jeans.

Glaz realized that he was trying to press himself further into his chair. His hands hurt from clenching at the sharp armrests, but he couldn't help it. He closed his fingers around the metal and imagined he was grasping at the closest White Mask's neck.

The taller White Mask leered down at him for a moment, but removed his grip from Glaz's shoulder. He said nothing as he went to stand by his waiting partner.

"Right, then. If we can get down to business." The hunter-type White Mask walked forwards, each of his footsteps silent on the slabs of tile. He halted several inches away from Glaz's own boots. "You know why you're here. _I _know why I'm here, certainly. We will be getting to know each other very well in the span of the next few weeks."

"Don't count on it," said Glaz.

The White Mask's eyes glimmered. "Ah. So you can understand what I'm saying. That's good. There is an easy way and a hard way to all things, operative. It's just a matter of what path you decide to take."

"The path that involves bashing your head in would be a fine start." As long as he wasn't giving the White Masks any vital intel, Glaz was happy to shit-talk them from his place in chains. It felt almost therapeutic. If there was one thing that Glaz had already sworn not to do, it was to give these terrorists any sort of respite from their work. He'd make these interrogator's lives a waking hell. Glaz would die with Rainbow's secrets between his teeth, and there wasn't a damn thing the White Masks would be able to do about it.

"Don't know why we got tasked with a fucking _Spetz," _sighed the brawler, beginning to pace at the far end of the room. He seemed to be thinking the same thing Glaz was. "Couldn't of been a tougher nut to crack."

"I would've thought you to have welcomed the challenge, Nowak," said the hunter.

"If it were a plausible one, yeah," The White Mask called Nowak said. "But I'm getting the feeling that this one would rather shoot himself in the dick than provide us with anything useful. And anything that _does _sound truthful is going to be bullshit ninety-nine percent of the time. Spetz don't talk, that's all." He stopped pacing and turned towards Glaz. "Isn't that right, little '_kov?_"

Spetz – Nowak must've been referring to the Russian Spetsnaz. Glaz wondered if they knew this from experience. The thought made him uncomfortable. He said nothing in response.

For the most part, the terrorists didn't seem to care that Glaz could hear their conversation. Nowak and the unnamed White Mask actually appeared to be awfully lax about the whole thing, looking down at Glaz like a pair of trappers contemplating what to do with an ensnared rabbit. They were all silent for a time. Glaz's headache began to worsen.

Eventually the unnamed one huffed and pointed past Glaz's head, to what Glaz assumed was the door. "Alright. You can head out for about...let's say ten, twenty minutes. I'll holler if I need you before then." For one ludicrous, brain-addling moment Glaz thought that the White Mask was addressing him, then realized this wasn't the case as Nowak shrugged and moved past the sniper's area of vision, vanishing from sight.

The door squealed open, then shut. Glaz was alone with the hunter. The interrogator had put his hands in his front denim pockets and was rocking back and forth on the spring of his heels.

"So. What's your name?" The White Mask inquired. He had a brusque way of speaking; unnecessarily clipped, devoid of any sort of emotion. It went completely against his physical mannerisms, which made him seem restless, alert. "You can call me Buddy. If you'd like. I doubt you will, but you're allowed to."

Glaz bit his tongue before he could say something stupid back. In his brief time observing the two men, he had already made some sense of their relationship relative to one another – if Nowak was the brawny, foul-mouthed thug who was itching to beat him senseless, then 'Buddy' was likely the sly, manipulative supervisor who got to decide when said punches would actually fly.

Glaz had read reports from American Feds about a similar technique. 'Good cop, bad cop,' they'd called it. He wondered why the hell the White Masks would care to do practice such a method. What were they expecting to get out of him, anyway? Or was his capture just an opportunistic one?

Buddy seemed like the more dangerous man to Glaz. Nowak could hit him until he was bleeding from every orifice and not have it matter, but the refined soothsayer in front of him was playing the long con.

"Don't have a name, huh?" Buddy walked behind him. Glaz heard metal dragging on the tiles. The man had pulled up a second chair. He set the chair down directly in front of Glaz, so that they could sit face to face. He eased into it and spread his legs apart. "Maybe it'll come back to you in a day or two. For now, I'll just call you Spetz, like my friend did. As far as nicknames go, it's not a bad one to have. In my opinion, at least.

"Spetz, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. I'd like you to answer them truthfully. First one's easy -" Buddy leaned forwards a slight amount, resting a hand underneath his masked chin. "Who do you work for?"

Glaz stared past Buddy and at the concrete wall. He hadn't noticed before, but it was marked with several uneven scores of chalk-like material, as if somebody had been clawing at it for an extended period of time. In other areas, he could see areas of blunt force impact: small craters with cracks radiating from their gray epicenters. Either the concrete was incredibly weak, or someone was exceptionally strong. Perhaps both.

"Who do you work for?" Buddy repeated. He said it in Russian this time.

If Glaz was being honest with himself, the White Masks likely knew that he was part of the Rainbow counter-terrorist unit already. Buddy was just prying at him, trying to weaken his mental fortitude. If he answered _this _question, what else would he tell them? And so on and so forth. Glaz said nothing.

Buddy waited for a couple more moments, sighed. From one of his coat's many unconventional pockets he drew out a long knife.

That got Glaz's attention. The interrogator flipped the blade from one side to another. Its surface reflected the room's sparse light, and the sniper saw that the knife had one continuous sharp edge, made for precise, clean cuts.

"Pretty, isn't she? I sharpened her recently. Was becoming dull from repeated use." Buddy pointed it towards Glaz, who was trying his hardest to keep his face blank. "This knife – look at me, dear Spetz, I'm not going to use it on you yet – this knife, I want you to think of it as your _muse. _You know what a muse is?"

Of course he knew. Glaz gnawed at the inside of his cheek. He managed a nod; that seemed to please Buddy, and he leaned back somewhat.

"You're an artist, then? I'd imagine a soldier like you has to distract himself from such grueling work with a hobby of some sort."

"A painter," said Glaz at last. His entire body was tense. He knew what the terrorist was doing; trying to establish a shared set of values, hobbies, etcetera. For now, though, it was better than being threatened at knifepoint. Even as Glaz answered his pointless questions, he was keeping his guard up.

From behind his white, featureless mask, Buddy's eyes lit up. "A painter! I know some Russian artists. Can't name any right now, I'm afraid, but I'm quite a fan of your country's fine arts. Well, actually-" Buddy laughed. It was a hollow sound. "- I'm more of a bibliophile myself, to be honest. I'm very fond of a Russian novel called _Crime and Punishment. _Yes. Feel free to laugh at the irony of it all; I don't mind._"_

Glaz didn't laugh, but it was hard not to somewhat amused by the whole thing. The man was lying through his teeth – well, maybe not about that last part, but Glaz was willing to bet his life that Buddy had no clue what he was talking about otherwise. Still, it was frightening how good of an actor he was. Not for the first time, Glaz wondered who and where the White Masks got their training from; no other terrorist cell that he had dealt with possessed such an experienced militia.

"Right, then. Let's get back to what I was trying to say. Artists -" Buddy held up the knife again. "go through a lot of muses in their lives. They come and go. Wax and wane. Right now, Spetz, I'm asking you to accept this muse into your life, like you would a lovely bride. Do you know what I mean by that?"

Glaz coughed. "No."

"What I _mean, _is that this knife is going to be a special sort of muse during your time here. This weapon, right here, is your source of inspiration. And it should inspire you to stay alive each time you have the misfortune of feeling its kiss." Buddy began to spin it between his gloved fingers. "Do you understand _now, _Spetz?"

Swallowing back an insult, Glaz could only nod. His brief respite from reality had come to an end. Meeting the interrogator's unflinching gaze, he was beginning to realize just how deep a trough of shit he was in. He steeled himself for what his unconsciousness already knew was coming.

The dark look that had began to cloud Buddy's eyes passed. "Good! Good. Because this knife is my muse, too, though for reasons entirely different from yours. I'm no good with a brush, but I've never had trouble painting a grim picture, you know? Anyways. Should we start over, Spetz?"

There was no time to say yes or no; Buddy continued before Glaz could reply, sliding his chair forwards so that he was even closer to the Russian operator. He seemed to be unafraid of what tricks Glaz might pull at such a proximity. Buddy actually moved his shoes so that they were planted firmly over Glaz's boots, as if he was trying to establish authority over his captive. Their legs were touching. Fighting back his impulse to try and kick the White Mask as hard as humanly possible, Glaz settled for lowering his gaze so that he could avoid looking directly at him. His hands had curled into fists.

"Okay, second try," came Buddy's voice. "Who do you work for?"

"You already know who I work for," Glaz said between gritted teeth.

"I'd like to hear it in your own words. You work for a national organization, Spetz? Something bigger?"

"I..."

"Alright, I'll help you along. Are your people under the jurisdiction of NATO?"

Glaz hesitated. Of course they were. Now he _knew _Buddy was toying with him.

"Yes," He said after a moment of contemplation. He'd have to let this question slide, since it was clear that the White Masks already knew that Glaz was a Rainbow operator – to what extent their knowledge went past that, he did not know.

"Hmm. I only know of one global counter-terrorism unit that combats us White Masks so frequently and _also _happens to answer to the beck and call of NATO. Do you know who I'm talking about, Spetz?"

The way that Buddy was tugging Glaz along like a teacher trying to tease an answer out of an unruly student was beginning to unnerve the sniper. "Yes," Glaz said, exasperated. "I work for Rainbow. I'm one of their Spetsnaz operatives. Is that what you want?" The White Masks already knew all of this.

Glaz could hear the smile in Buddy's voice. "It's a good start. Now, about those other questions..."

There was a sharp rapping on the door behind Glaz. The sniper jumped; he didn't realize how spring-loaded his emotions had become during Buddy's questioning. Embarrassed, Glaz allowed himself to slump down in his seat as Buddy shrugged and stood up, opening the door. Due to his unfortunate position in the room, Glaz could only listen to their conversation.

"Something you need?" That was Buddy.

"Something that Smith needs, actually. Says she wants to move him to a cell better suited for this whole gig and all." Nowak. He sounded bored. "'The chair ain't too good for, well..." He trailed off. There was something they didn't want Glaz to overhear.

"I understand," came Buddy's flat reply. "She give you a syringe?"

A grunt of affirmation from Nowak, the brief silence of an occurring exchange. Then the door was shut and Buddy was walking back into Glaz's line of sight. He held a silver tray. A needle was nestled snugly against the black fabric covering the tray's top. Glints of yellowish liquid wobbled in the syringe's metallic cylinder as Buddy pulled it out, taking care to not apply pressure to the plunger. This he held up to the room's faint rays of light, checking for any cracks or leaks in its surface.

Glaz focused on the syringe with a troubled expression. Another memory spilled from his brain.

_He was fighting with the combatant on top of him. Glaz's rifle had been knocked aside, and now the sniper was fumbling for his knife, but he couldn't grab for it at the same time the attacker was trying to shank him with a similarly sharp object. Not without getting stabbed. Pushed deep into the snow, Glaz finally managed to sneak in a liver shot with his left fist. The enemy gasped in pain and tumbled off of him, writhing. At the same time, a shiny device rolled out of his open palm._

_Whatever it was, it caught Glaz's eye. Staggering to his feet, Glaz peered after it. The so-called 'sharp object' stood out bright yellow against the snow. It was a syringe. Liquid the color of dehydrated piss dribbled out of its ruptured point._

_Glaz stared. Beside him, the attacker was down on the ground, groaning...footsteps from behind...blinding, white-hot agony..._

"You recognize this, Spetz?" Buddy was watching him with a curious look. He'd knelt down to Glaz's left, had rolled up the operator's sleeve. The point of the needle hovered over Glaz's exposed wrist. In the room's sparse light, it gleamed like the fang of a hungry dog.

"What is it?" Glaz said. He was stalling, trying to alleviate some of his mounting stress.

"Same drug that allowed us to drag you in here and keep you asleep for a day or two. You came in on short notice, so we had to up the dosage, give ourselves time to prep. But that's all you'll hear from me about it."

"I mean – what kind of _drug_ is it?" Glaz could hear the incessant pounding of his own heart. Bracing for the pain.

"Sorry. I wouldn't tell you, even if I knew. It's one of Smith's concoctions. That's all. Now, this is going to hurt like fucking shit-"

_Who in the hell is Smith? _Glaz asked – or was about to, if not for the abrupt movement of Buddy's thumb sinking down the syringe's plunger and the fact it suddenly felt like his entire left arm had just been ripped off by some indiscriminate industrial machine. He was too shocked to even cry out, but Buddy clamped a hand over his mouth anyways, as if worried that someone else uninvolved with the scheme would be able to hear him. As the pain spread like an all-engulfing flame, Glaz was dimly aware of the blurry white mask in front of him releasing his wrist and running a quick finger over the sniper's eyelids, as if encouraging Glaz to close them all the way.

Glaz did. He gave himself up to the darkness crowding around his vision and, blessedly, the assured comfort of a dreamless sleep.


	2. Schrödinger's Sniper

"God, I hate you chucklefucks," snapped Bandit. "Just let me see the damn screen."

Blitz yanked the tablet away from Dominic's grasping hands. "I said _no._" There was real, rare frustration in Kotz's voice. He was skimming the brightly lit report projected on the device's digital surface, brows furrowing the more he read.

When an individual loses a loved one, it can feel like the entire world has crumbled away between their fingertips, like sand filtering through a particularly large sifting pan. The person can strain for what once was – fight against the many traces that the missing man has left, quarrel with what pieces remain, end up shadowboxing the many ghosts that dare to linger. In short, it is a complicated thing to lose somebody, especially when said grieving individual is so used to _winning._

Now, take an entire _organization_ used to winning. An organization whose gratuitous funding depended on it. Add twenty, thirty hands for the sand to fall through. The environment becomes one massive sifting pan in a sandpit of sore losers that have hearts to break and axes to grind.

It becomes a very angry sandpit indeed.

Two days had passed since Glazkov's disappearance, and the RAINBOW unit had already shifted into high-gear, balls-to-the-walls, full damage control. It was one thing to temporarily lose an operator to an injury or other surprise malady; it was another beast entirely to let the White Masks get the better of them with such an aggressive, flippant maneuver. It was like a feeding mouse whipping its tail and knocking a fang out of a snake's open jaws. An impossible situation turned possible. The underdog that you did not expect nor want to win. The RAINBOW operatives at that point had devolved into a buzzing hornet's nest, riled up to a feverish degree by a blend of anger, sadness, and healthy dosage of skittishness.

No unit was so affected by their loss as the Spetsnaz team – which, while expected, provided the rest of the GSG 9 operatives stationed at their temporary joint-command outpost in Berlin good reason to give them a wide berth. Out of all the units, the Spetsnaz squad had been known as a tight-knit, proactive family that prided itself in its shared camaraderie and passionate drive. They had been a riot in the break room; had regularly boasted their ability to match the GSG 9s shot for shot at the local pubs on their rare nights out. And while Fuze arm-wrestled Blitz at the bar counter, both of them flushed up to their ears (Blitz finally allowing his arm get pinned down onto the bar's grimy brown varnish while Fuze roared in triumph), Glaz would have been found lounging in the hazy backdrop, chatting with IQ about whatever curious subject came to their heads at that moment in alcohol-warped time. Kapkan, of course, would prowl close to their table, checking in on the sniper with affectionate pats on the shoulder and offers to bring the two more drinks.

Glazkov had been their emotional anchor. Without his established weight keeping the rest of the Spetsnaz stationary, they were a vessel set to drift on uncharted waters, with each ship-goer scrambling to restore the helm they had so abruptly lost.

The finely-tuned machine known as RAINBOW was suffering, breaking down at the hinges, and bowing to the weight of a stressed, paranoid staff that had no clue what the consequences of losing a prestigious operator like Glazkov entailed for the rest of them. They had no conclusive evidence of what had happened to the sniper, and the White Masks had not yet claimed responsibility for anything out of the blue. The RAINBOW organization, for all their advanced methods of reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering, was completely in the dark on what had happened to their Spetsnaz operative.

* * *

**BLITZ**

Back in the GSG9's quarters, four German operatives huddled around their newest update on the whole mess. It was a scarce handful of paragraphs that seemed to be purposefully designed as a vague piece of work that neither confirmed nor denied any leads on the ongoing situation. Abstract words such as 'possibly', 'purported', and 'suggested' littered the update like trash on the side of the autobahn. Blitz was in the middle of the group, holding the tablet. Bandit made another failed grab for it, held back by Blitz's extended arm.

"What does it say?" asked IQ. She swiped at her short hair, pushing the front sides of it away from her face. It clung to her scalp. She had just taken a shower, and Blitz could smell the vanilla shampoo she had scrubbed into the platinum blonde strands.

"A whole lot of nothing." Blitz sighed. He dimmed the tablet and threw it on the adjacent bunk, where Bandit snatched it up with a curse. "Higher-ups want everything locked down and under control while they try to steer the narrative back into their own hands. The entire report might as well just be the words 'remain calm' flashing in bright red on a fiery background but extended into twenty sentences of technical lingo."

Jäger looked at him. "You think there's something they're not telling us?" The question hung in the air like an omnipresent storm-cloud, his true query -_ is he dead?_ \- hovering delicately in the space between.

Blitz clenched his jaw. He didn't reply.

"Oh, that's a _given,_" Bandit said from his spot on the next bunk. Powering the tablet back on, he did a quick scroll through the report, hesitating briefly at a point near its end. "Says right here that there was 'evidence inferential of a struggle', but there's no telling what the evidence actually _is. _Maybe it does say, but I can't find it in here. Christ. There's military code, and then there's fucking Egyptian hieroglyphics." Bandit flung the device back down on the cot, rubbing at his eyes.

"I thought you were used to code wording," said Blitz, referring to Bandit's time undercover in the Hell's Angels.

Bandit scoffed. "You think I actually followed all of the underhanded orders the GSG 9 gave me? If I had went with each and every one of the agency's whims, they would have soon found me in some shallow-dug grave just outside Hannover. Nah. Most of my work was improvisational. It had to be."

"You filed_ paperwork._ For two years, no less."

Bandit hesitated. Then he lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. "Can't expect me to remember everything. And I've done away with the shackles of that god-awful border job, thank you very much, so don't remind me about it. Now I'm in the big leagues – with you lovely individuals."

"Flattering," said IQ. She stood up, unfolding her legs. "Any news of a briefing in that report?"

"None," said Blitz, giving Bandit a cautionary look. Something was up with the older operator: he was wisecracking as per usual, but there was an undercurrent of apprehension in his voice, one that masqueraded as pronounced edginess and nothing more. But Blitz could tell when Bandit was being disingenuous, and he was about to call him out on it the moment the other two present operators left the room.

"No briefing today, then." IQ yawned, covering her mouth with a hand. "More time to worry, do some logistics, and then worry some more. I'll see you boys in the cafeteria."

"Wait," said Blitz. "You sure that Marius doesn't want to go with you?"

That seemed to confuse IQ. "He's...never really went with me before."

"Well. Maybe we all need a reminder of how fragile this time really is with one another." Gesturing towards Jäger, who seemed to be only partially listening, Blitz's expression softened. He was visualizing what could have occurred in a different scenario, where it was Jäger tasked with setting up in an isolated area, or IQ, or even Bandit. Blitz felt sickened to his stomach. He was having a visceral reaction just imagining it. "...I don't like to think about disasters any more than the rest of you, but...just bring him along with you, yeah? Besides. He's been getting too scrawny to even pose a challenge dead-lifting anymore."

"Was never a challenge," mumbled Bandit, leaning into the bed post. "Just grab 'em by the straps of his ballistic vest, fling him off of the ramparts of whatever siege reenactment you're practicing. He yelps before he hits the ground. Very entertaining from an outsider's perspective. I think I made Six laugh doing that once."

"You were the playground bully when you were a kid, weren't you?" asked Blitz.

"Nah. I was the one getting shoved into lockers by the playground bully and then retaliating for it by stealing their bike chains and dumping food coloring on the stuffed animals they brought in for show-and-tell." Bandit's eyes glimmered, as if recalling a fond memory. "I quickly became the kid that you did not want to fuck with based on the impending misfortune you'd receive in your life alone. I made other children _superstitious_ of messing with me."

"That...makes a lot more sense, actually," muttered Blitz. "Forget I ever asked. Anyways – Monika, Marius, you leaving?"

"As soon as Marius gets his head out of the clouds," replied IQ, sounding amused. They all turned to look at the engineer. He was staring hard at something in the fixed distance, eyes slightly unfocused. The behavior was not uncommon for him: he could often be found in their workshop with a pencil poised over another enterprising blueprint, brows furrowed, thinking from the moon and back about the most outrageously technical of things. Oftentimes he didn't even get to put it down on paper. But it was just how Jäger's mind worked: like the afterburner on a jet engine, thrusting his creative processes into overdrive with each abstract idea and impossible question posed to it.

"Let me get him," said Bandit.

"Absolutely not. Monika, shake him out of it, please," said Blitz. He turned around to glare at Bandit. "Dominic and I need to have a little conversation."

* * *

**JÄGER**

While the other three GSG 9 operatives conversed over the relevance of the latest report, calming their nerves with talk that dissected intelligence's words and parsed away at what the real situation might be behind all of their professional fronting, Jäger was reclining with leisure in the room's single red chair and thinking hard on his own question that nobody had bothered to truly answer.

_What were they not telling them? Was Glaz dead or alive?_

Strange things happened to people when they possessed no real faith or knowledge of what had befallen an individual now missing from their lives. Mountainous hope clashed with cavernous dread. The mind pondered on whether it should give up, or keep powering forwards, with absolutely no clue if the energy that it was expending over the subject would pay off and prove them right in the end.

But the human conscience was a fickle thing, and it insisted on testing its limits of processing – so, as far as that day went, all of the RAINBOW personnel operated under an involuntary thought experiment in which each and every one of them perceived Glaz as both dead and alive, since they really had no notion of anything otherwise. He was missing, but also hadn't been found.

The two states of being - whether it be alive or dead – were a constant reminder of how little the operatives knew, and also how straightforward the answer might be. It was one or the other in the end. But for as long as the jury was out, Glazkov existed in a blurred reality. While all of the operatives prayed for him to be found alive, they had no concrete footing on which to believe such a thing – not until they actually tracked him down and found out what definitive state he was in once and for all.

Even more interesting, the operators Jäger had encountered since the incident all acted correspondingly with the state of reality as it was now regarding Glazkov: not alive, not dead, so they were both mourning and hopeful at once. Some of them, Jäger had noticed, had already started to write off finding the sniper alive. Others, the Spetsnaz especially, were either still going through the many phases of denial or were stubbornly clinging onto their beliefs that Glaz would be all right.

Jäger was still sitting, balking at the Schrödinger's cat paradox as it coincided with human relations and the Spetsnaz sniper's absence, when IQ gave him a polite tap on the head.

"You in there, Marius?"

"What? Oh." Blinking rapidly, Jäger sat up in the chair where he had begun to slump towards the floor. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

"Good. Are we going to go get breakfast together?"

"Uh, I don't -" Jäger cut short when he noticed Blitz's death-glare emanating behind IQ's back. Jäger tried again. "- I don't have anything else to do, so of course I'll go with you. Have to practice the buddy system and all." It was a very unpleasant expression to be seen from the normally good-humored operator, so Jäger heeded it with a timid smile, all the while hoping he had interpreted it correctly.

He was relieved when the look vanished from Blitz's face, and he gave Jäger a hidden thumbs-up before turning to look back at Bandit. Bandit, for the most part, appeared to be ignorant of the whole thing. Jäger stood and followed Monika out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him. He and IQ were only several feet away from the entrance, walking down the hallway to the cafeteria, when they heard the lock to the door _click._

The two glanced at each other.

"Guess we'll be spending some quality time at the cafeteria," said IQ. "Personally, I'm going to avoid returning to that room for an hour or two at the_ least._"

"Sounds good to me."

They kept walking.

"So, what were you thinking about?" Monika was trying to her best to conjure up a little less awkward of a conversation, but between the recent events and the resulting tense atmosphere, it was a bit difficult to fall back on regular small-talk.

"Oh." Warmth rushed into Jäger's cheeks. He couldn't just tell her that he had been mulling over theoretical physics thought-experiments as they related to the dire circumstances at RAINBOW – especially so soon. That would be _weird,_ even for him. "Mechanical things." He coughed. "I've gotta tweak my Magpie." Quantum mechanics, regular mechanics: it wasn't entirely a lie. He did actually have to do some maintenance work on the ADS-MKIV, and had been putting it off since last week. Another thing to tally down on his mental checklist.

IQ hummed. "I don't think anyone here is going to mind if a few tasks get delayed in their completion. The staff...actually, the staff would probably appreciate it if they had some time to just focus on what's going on right now. The entire workplace hierarchy is going to be sluggish on the uptake, so I think a lot of other operators are going to be taking a couple of days to kick back their feet, try and distract themselves. Relax."

"Easy to say, hard to do. Working _is_ how I distract myself."

"Hah. I'm inclined to agree with you on that, but..." IQ sighed. "This – this _incident_ that has happened – I can't stop thinking about it. I want to imagine that everything's going to be alright in the end, and yet, I've seen the world. We're all realists here. Fact is, there's only so long that RAINBOW can continue searching before the tracks wash away and leave nothing to recover."

Jäger could only nod. He was thinking about the experiment again.

They rounded the corner, and IQ took a deep breath before falling silent. They were in Spetsnaz's hallway. It felt like stepping onto sacred land. The entire stretch of lights lining the corridor were dim and sputtering, a technical difficulty having to do with the base's ramshackle circuitry system. Despite numerous operators volunteering to fix it a day after it had started flickering on them, the staff on-base ultimately considered the action a liability and had promised to call in an electrician to resolve the faulty distribution routers. Two months later, no electrician had so much as pulled up to the base's parking lot, and the overheads remained broken.

"Feels like it's abandoned," whispered IQ. "Did they get re-housed?"

"No," said Kapkan from behind them, who had chosen that moment to emerge from one of the shadowy doors lining the corridor. "But none of us have slept. We are busying ourselves with exercise and work." His voice sounded hoarser than usual, like he had been shouting for hours. "It is what Doc instructed us to do."

Jäger, still trying to modestly recover from his embarrassing bout of fright, uncurled his fists and peered into the operative's shaded face. Kapkan was wearing track-pants and a forest-green hoodie that tilted over his eyes much like his ghillie coat did. In the dubious light, Jäger thought he could see tints of red surrounding Kapkan's irises.

"My god, Kap," said IQ. "I almost punched you." She sounded shaken as well. It was then that Jäger realized that all of them were high-strung, despite how much they all pretended not to be. You just either put on a brave face or tried your damnedest to hide the scared one.

Kapkan shrugged and raised his arm. He was gripping a half-empty bottle of Gorbatschow. "Wouldn't have minded it." Tipping his head back to take a generous sip of the vodka, he drank, grimacing.

IQ lowered her fists and shared a worried look with Jäger. "We're sorry for disturbing you, then," she said at last. "...How have you been holding up?"

The Spetsnaz operator held up the bottle in response, wiping at his mouth with one sleeve.

"Have you guys gotten any other updates excluding the universal ones?" interjected Jäger.

"None. Though I can't say I'm surprised. Just – just upset about it," replied Kapkan, whose tone suggested a slight breach past 'upset' and into the realms of 'homicidal'. "I just want answers. But I have been told that there are none." Kapkan shrugged. "So I'll wait. For as long as it takes."

IQ kept sneaking glances towards the hallway's far bend, where it rounded towards the base's cafeteria. "That's good," she said, flashing him an unobtrusive smile. "We're all hoping to hear, well,_ something._ Something optimistic. But we're probably intruding on your alone time, so...you know."

Kapkan stepped back into the shadow of the doorway he had first come out of, nodding. "Yeah," he managed. "No, I understand." The room within appeared to be entirely dark, and the more he dissolved back into its shadow the more he became inhuman to the eye, a wandering specter submerging itself again into the abyss. The two GSG 9 operatives squinted after him, and Jäger gave an awkward wave. The door clicked shut.

"He appears to be taking it a bit better than I was expecting," said Jäger.

"No, I don't think he is," said IQ softly. "Did you see how short his sleeves were? That was Glaz's hoodie." She exhaled through her nose the breath that she had been holding. "Come on. Let's get going, before the others steal all of the pancake mix."

* * *

**KAPKAN**

Kapkan was running.

A favored pastime of his, the sport where his only competition was the measure in his strides, the circular plaza of the court, the pounding of his own heart. He ran without earbuds; the wind breezing past his ears was melody enough. The comparative silence of the gymnasium versus the rest of the small base's enclosures gave Kapkan room to think of nothing except putting one more foot in front of the other. And that was how he liked it.

At last, fatigue beat out his body and he slowed to a halt. He didn't know how long he had been circling the track: only that at one point the morning sun had begun to peek into the indoor gym's high, clandestine windows, illuminating the strip's pocked and scuffed surface from a decade of operator's tennis-shoes. Even the time when he had started his circuit around the court was lost on him. All he remembered was getting out of the cot where he had been previously staring up restless at the dark ceiling, mechanically lacing together his worn-out sneakers, and drifting out towards the track. It had been dark outside then. Not a soul had bothered him while he ran, around and around, taking only the bare minimum of breaks to wipe the flood of sweat from his brow and stare at the floor below him, feeling detached from any and all things.

Now, doubled over and feeling the fire in his legs, Kapkan dragged himself over to the locker room and collapsed on one of its many rectangular benches. He shouldn't have pushed his body that hard, but it felt good to have his physical and mental conditions be in such perfect harmony. His lungs burned. Looking at the floor was beginning to make Kapkan feel dizzy. The clean-cut tiles warped and shifted past his vision, like a mosaic crafted by a drunk man first experiencing sea sickness. Kapkan remedied it with a sip of water and a gulp of vodka. His dehydrated body thanked him by making his eyes sting even more. Or were those tears? Damn it. He thought the buckets of sweat he'd been shedding had dried those ducts out.

The rest of the operators on base would be awake by now. Gathering his things from his locker, Kapkan pretended that the cubicle to his immediate right was in a universal blind spot, and he shoved his dirty gym clothes into his own locker without a single glance at it otherwise. He only paused when he pulled out his replacement clothes from his bag, realized what he accidentally grabbed from the dorm's unlit closet, and subsequently broke down on the spot.

Fifteen minutes later he pushed open the door to the brightly-lit hallway and hurried back to the Spetsnaz wing of the base, praying that he did not run into any other living souls on his trek that could glimpse his red eyes and exhausted bearing. His entry back into the dormitory was quick and unhindered; Kapkan stood alone in the room, with Fuze and Tachanka probably off assisting faculty with busy work, just as Doc had directed them.

The room smelled stale. Kapkan finally built up the nerve to flip the light on. Their bunks were in disarray: Kapkan hadn't bothered to fix his sheets, and neither had the rest of the Spetsnaz operatives, with Fuze's mattress bare and the blankets thrown on the floor, Tachanka's in a similar state. The only bed made was Glazkov's, the untouched sheets tucked in with a perfectionist's care, still slightly indented from when Glaz had sat down on it two days ago. He had been pulling on his boots for their extraction mission. They had all been joking about something. Kapkan couldn't remember what.

Several feet away, Glaz's painting supplies were tucked in the nightstand's half-open drawer, a sketchbook's red cover shining like a beacon from the dull palette of wood and sawdust. Charcoal pencils and a case of unopened watercolors were set atop the stand.

Now Kapkan could remember.

"Always painting nature stuff," Fuze had told Glaz that final day, rooting around in the cabinet drawer for his woolen socks. "Try to draw something else for once."

"Like what?" Glaz was still pinning his sheets down the correct way below the mattress, like they had all first learned in recruit training. It was a wonder that he still had the discipline to fix it up with such precision – they all tried to keep their beds properly made, but not to the degree Glazkov did.

"Like – here, hold on a second." Fuze turned around and rifled in his load-out bag, at last fishing out his small PMM handgun. He held it by the barrel. "Paint Samara for me." Fuze rotated the sidearm, showing off its decorated hand grip and refined finish. "She is very pretty. Don't you agree?"

"Uh," said Glaz. He was very clearly trying not to bust up laughing.

Tachanka covered for him. "Shuhrat, did you_ rename_ your gun? _Again_?"

With a level of shamelessness impressive by any scientific measurement, Fuze shrugged and tucked it back into the covers of the bag. "What? Alena was not doing it for me. Reminded me of annoying girl back at headquarters. She ruined the name."

"My god," Kapkan had remembered muttering.

"You'll paint her, though, won't you?" Fuze continued eagerly, then cringed as Tachanka lightly slapped him upside the head. "What was that for?" He complained, rubbing at the back of his skull.

"Stop distracting Timur," Tachanka replied. He already had all of his required gear on, and was shouldering the rest of his equipment like a bull supporting a yoke. "He'll make us all late to briefing again." But there was a twinkle of amusement in the oldest Spetsnaz operative's eye, and he turned to look at Glaz, expectant of his answer to Fuze's request.

"Oh," said Glaz, flustered by the sudden spotlight on his response. "Yeah. Of course. I'll paint, er, _Samara_ right when we get back. But you're paying me."

Fuze clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Now let's go shoot some bad guys."

The memory faded. Kapkan was back in the empty room, the ghosts of what once was lingering all around him.

Kapkan tread lightly around Glaz's corner. He didn't dare touch anything. And then he was sitting down on his own bed, weak fingers of light threading their way across the gray rug, curling inwards on the sunken mattress. He could do nothing but close his eyes and pretend he was somewhere else.


End file.
